New York Yankees Alex Rodriguez watches his 599th career home run, in the seventh inning off Kansas City Royals reliever Robinson Tejada, in a baseball game at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, July 22, 2010 in New York.

Jimmy Johnson waves good-bye at a news conference Sunday, Jan. 16, 2000 at the Dolphins training camp in Davie, Fla. Johnson resigned as coach of the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, one day after the worst loss in franchise history, and was replaced by Dave Wannstedt.

He’s admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs. He makes an estimated $37 million a year. He’s dated Kate Hudson and Cameron Diaz. He’s a big star in the Big Apple.

On Thursday, he drove an 0-2 fastball from Royals reliever Robinson Tejeda over the right-field wall at Yankee Stadium. It was the 599th home run of his career.

He is, of course, Alex Rodriguez, one of the most gifted players in baseball history. When he swats his next homer, he will join Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Willie Mays and Sammy Sosa as members of the elite 600-club.

Rodriguez, who turns 35 on Tuesday, will certainly become the youngest player to hit 600 home runs. Ruth currently holds the mark at 36 years, 196 days.

No. 600 should be a cause for celebration, but it really isn’t. It’s amazing how quietly A-Rod has approached No. 600. That’s probably because the 600 club is tainted, stained with the juice of the steroid era. Bonds, Sosa, and A-Rod, hit chemically enhanced homers. Six-hundred simply isn’t what it used to be.

Since coming clean about his steroid use, Rodriguez says he’s a changed man. He’s more of a team player, he claims.

“Nothing is as exciting as what happened last November,” A-Rod told reporters Thursday, referring to winning his first World Series. “Now I have a different perspective on things. Early in my career, I loved winning, but it was about accumulating numbers and hoping to get to the postseason. Now, it’s about one goal, and along the way you hope to get big home runs. I’m in a different place right now, a much better place.”

He’s been called “A-Fraud,” and worse. Now the question is: Will he be called a Hall of Famer some day? Should he be?

And if A-Rod gets invited to Cooperstown, shouldn’t Bonds and Sosa get invites too?

It’s a tough call. They are all cheaters, yet they played in an era full of cheaters.

As Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt told ESPN’s Jayson Stark shortly after A-Rod admitted using steroids: “I can understand the old hard-line guys who use the words, ‘He cheated, he cheated, he cheated.’ And (I understand) the other guys that go, ‘It was a culture thing back then, and if you played, you’d have been tempted, too.’ “

But I also think Cooperstown should include a permanent display that remembers, recounts and explains the steroid era. A wall of shame, if you will, displayed in the Hall of Fame.

Trivia time

Not counting A-Rod, what active major league player has hit the most career home runs? (Answer below)

Polling

A current Denver Post poll asks readers what the Rockies’ greatest need is as the July 31 trade deadline nears. With nearly 1,400 votes cast, more than 40 percent of voters said the Rockies need a power-hitting first baseman. Nearly 37 percent said the Rockies should add another starting pitcher. About 23 percent said the Rockies need to beef up their bullpen.

Quotable

“Being a farm boy it was one of my big dreams and I bought myself a nice John Deere tractor for my farm back in South Africa. John Deere is very close to my heart. It’s for me to drive around on and I made sure there was enough space for my little daughter Jana to sit beside me. We’re going to have a lot of fun.” — British Open champion
Louis Oosthuizen, telling reporters what he planned to do with his winnings.

In case you missed it

Former coach Jimmy Johnson, who won a college football championship with Miami and two Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys, will be a contestant on the CBS reality show “Survivor: Nicaragua” this fall, a source close to Johnson told the Dallas Morning News.

Imagine that, Johnson, the Fox NFL Sunday studio host with the famous helmet of hair, eating bugs, sweating and getting dirty in the jungles of San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. At age 67, Johnson will be one of the oldest contestants ever on the long-running reality show.

Trivia answer

Jim Thome, now playing for the Minnesota Twins, has 575 career home runs.

More in News

A member of a "sophisticated cocaine trafficking conspiracy" was convicted Monday in federal court in Denver of conspiring to distribute, and possessing with intent to distribute, five kilograms or more of cocaine, according to prosecutors.

A man who shot two eighth graders at Deer Creek Middle School in 2010, and was found not guilty by reason of insanity to attempted murder, will not be allowed to leave the Colorado Mental Health Institute's grounds without supervision, according to a Jefferson County District Court ruling.

After the San Francisco Bay Area, metro Denver experienced the biggest apartment rent increases this decade in the country. But plenty of new supply should put future rent gains closer to the national average, according to a new report from RealPage, a real estate research firm.